Journey to Motherhood - First Trimester

For those of you who follow me on YouTube and/or Instagram, you will know that I am now in my third trimester of my first pregnancy. I have a playlist on my channel called Journey to Motherhood and I wanted to be able to document more than just the trimesters over here on the blog, even though the time is quickly passing. So today I'm going to start with Trimester One Recap and you can watch the full video below along with my announcement video!

     I think to start, I should probably take it back just a touch. My husband and I got married in Sept. 2022 and while we knew we would start a family some day, we didn't know when. After our wedding we decided to start looking for a house thinking that we would never be able to afford something, but that the market research would help us to save for it in the coming years. WELL...did we ever get lucky, because 3 months after we got married, we found the perfect house, put in an offer and got it. This is our first home and we were absolutely STOKED. We had decided that before we started a family we wanted to be married and have our own home. So last February (2023) we packed up our rented townhouse and made the move about an hour and half north of the city, which actually put us much closer to the cottage, which is an added bonus. 

     Moving on, we celebrated our First Wedding Anniversary this past September and had the discussion of whether or not we were ready to start a family. We both know that one is *never* truly ready, but we agreed that we had a house, I had landed my new job, so we were both on board. Now I will say we were both expecting this starting a family process to last a little longer, so leading up to my first cycle after trying, Scott had ZERO belief that I would already be pregnant. He figured we would have to try over the course of a few months and thought I was being a little bit silly with how keen I was with thinking I could already be pregnant. Welp. I was LOL. I got the last laugh there, let me tell you. I found out Sept. 27th and had just bought a tee to cricut a 'daddy' design on for when the time came. Well that night I had to quickly design and make the shirt so when Scott came home from a friend's place, I could surprise him. There was NO way that I could wait a moment longer (I had actually confirmed before he'd left for his friend's but I wanted the shirt to be part of the reveal so I somehow kept my mouth shut). He wasn't home until about midnight, so his reaction was a tired "are you actually pregnant?...wow" promptly followed by both of us knocking out haha. I tested again in the morning to be sure and with both tests the positive was like I'M HERE!

     The next person to find out was my bestie. I thought that I would be able to hold on a little bit longer but nope...FaceTimed her at about 6:30 in the morning which I knew would be pretty big giveaway as we would usually just text but I was like 'it will be quick just answer' lol. I was wearing Scott's shirt (which read: Dad Joke Loading) and of course she was shocked and pleased! Then my "niece" was being coached by her daddy to say "Good job Scott" which was hilarious from a 2yo. Of course we told my dad and Scott's parents all within a couple of days. I made a shirt for myself that said "expecting a little pumpkin" on a bright orange tee since we were coming into October. Of course, everyone was excited for us but I must admit, starting a new teaching job, helping to coach a rugby team AND finding out I was pregnant all in the span of 3 weeks, was a biiiiiiit much for me. Don't recommend LOL. 

     Now to begin the true first trimester stuff...I will say that I had an incredibly smooth start to my pregnancy because I had absolutely no morning sickness (thank God...) and really didn't have many symptoms. My boobs hurt...a LOT...and from about week 5-10 I did have incredible fatigue/brainfog. I remember trying to describe it to Scott as, the fatigue you feel when you're really ill x100 and then you're starting to come close. But the moment it lifted, I felt great again. But due to moving we don't have a family doctor anymore, so I was 10 weeks before I had my first prenatal appointment and had to take a day off work in order to drive to the city for it, which was less than ideal. But I got lucky and was able to walk into an ultrasound appointment right afterwards, which actually moved my due date up by just a couple of days. It was amazing to see a true image of baby, as I had only had a bedside ultrasound done at the hospital a couple weeks prior when I went to Emerg after having some really bad food poisoning. So the dating ultrasound moved up my due date to June 1st, which is exactly one month before my own birthday so yay to a warm weather birthday! I will say, the timing of this birth is pretty awesome in terms of me not having to suffer extremely pregnant with either extreme seasons. I got through the winter and baby will be out before the hot days of summer - so 10/10 recommend this timeline ahaha

     I didn't have any cravings or food aversions in the first trimester, which I was pretty happy with, there were a few smells while hubby was cooking that would make me scrunch my nose, but would disipate quickly. I have been aware of the foods that are not 'safe' during pregnancy and luckily most of the foods that should be avoided are ones that I don't eat. I have had Subway a couple of times but I haven't really gone out of my way to eat deli meats. There was a couple week stint in November where I was eating pb&j sandwiches, which I wouldn't exactly call a craving but felt drawn to them haha. One thing that came/went during this trimester was my love of tea. Before pregnancy I drank a LOT of tea - it was borderline ridiculous so I knew once I fell pregnant that I had to pump the breaks. So over time I reduced my intake - I actually went over a week or so without a single cup of tea which absolutely floored me. But there was a time where tea just wasn't doing it for me - I would get maybe half way through my cuppa and then just give up or forget about it. So I was down to maybe one tea a day, which is absolutely unheard of. I am also not so great at drinking my water...I have days that I'm great and drink a lot and then I go days and days without. For me tea was always my water intake (which I know is NOT good lol) so when I dropped off on my tea I just didn't drink much of anything. I'm not really a juice or pop girl either, so I just didn't have anything. To be honest, I'm still struggling with the water intake as I'm not big on adding stuff to it, but it's also just so boring...

     Now then...for some other changes or lack thereof - I had no real weight change. I would say that I did drop about 5lbs in the beginning but not because of being sick or lack of eating, it was honestly just a few pounds that didn't need to be on my body and went away. But other than that, I didn't have any weight change nor any 'pop' of my tummy. I did spend a lot of time during this period worried about the weight gain that is to be expecting during pregnancy. I have not always had the best view of my body so I knew that I would have to adjust to that. They say that on average 25-30lbs is a good amount of weight to gain and I truly believe your body will do what it has to do and there is no shame in gaining more than that. But even 25lbs at minimum would put me at 160 which was a terrifying thought. I really had to work around the idea that baby needs my body to grow to be healthy and that I need to be okay with that. I also figured that if I was able to kind of keep the weight to my midsection that I would be more reassured that I'm growing for baby and not "just getting fat" (again to MY own eyes). But with no weight gain whatsoever I wasn't so worried in those first few months.

     My safe date was near the end of November and that is when we shared with extended family and I shared online. I was SO EXCITED to finally share and be able to confide in some of my friends who have somewhat recently had babies. It was nice to feel like I had a new space and realm to discover with others. I know that there is SO MUCH to learn but I put it off because I had to focus on work, so I'm definitely playing catch up now. 

     I don't forsee my blog being completely taken over by baby content, but I will definitely be adding a Motherhood category to share my adventures with little one. I will also share my second trimester post soon to catch you up as well as some planning for my baby shower next month! Thank you so much for reading, and don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow me on Instagram.